A Feminist Agape Meal At Christmas Time

Prepared by Marie Cameron for the With Women community, Toowoomba (Australia).


Blessed is She who spoke and the world became. Blessed is She.
Blessed is She who in the beginning gave birth.
Blessed is She who says and performs.
Blessed is She who declares and fulfils.
Blessed is She whose womb covers the earth...
Blessed is She who lives forever, and exists eternally.
Blessed is She who redeems and saves. Blessed is Her Name.


Reading: Proverbs 8:22-31


Holy Sophia, we come together tonight
To celebrate our friendship and our journeying together
With some of the good things of your creation -
Food, wine, music.
As you became enfleshed in the baby of Bethlehem
So may you be enfleshed in us.
May we love, honour and nurture you within us
And may we shine like stars with your radiance
Delighting in the whole of creation and our lives within it.
Bless our celebration tonight,
Dance with us, laugh with us, sing with us,
Rejoice with us.
Holy Sophia, be present here.

The meal is shared.

After the meal -

Who is She, neither male nor female, maker of all things,
only glimpsed or hinted, source of life and gender?
She is God,
mother, sister, lover: in her love we wake, move, grow,
are daunted, triumph and surrender.

Who is She, mothering her people, teaching them to walk,
lifting weary toddlers, bending down to feed them?
She is Love,
crying in a stable, teaching from a boat,
friendly with the lepers, bound for crucifixion.

Who is She, sparkle in the rapids, coolness of the well,
living power of Jesus flowing from the Scriptures?
She is Life,
water, wind and laughter, calm, yet never still,
Swiftly moving Spirit, singing in the changes.
(Brian Wren)


Blessing

We draw up the energy of the Spirit gathered here
We gather in the Wisdom present here
We give it out in love to the world
And we give thanks.